Thursday, February 16, 2012

[ZESTCaste] ‘Invisible’ trouble for Maya

'Invisible' trouble for Maya- CM accused of cutting herself off as Samajwadi returns to rootsRADHIKA RAMASESHANActresses Padmini Kolhapuri (left) and Poonam Dhillon campaign for theTrinamul Congress on Thursday in Lucknow, which goes to the polls onFebruary 19. (PTI)

Lucknow, Feb. 16: If in 2007 the Samajwadi Party was accused ofdrifting away from its moorings, this time it is Mayawati who facesthe charge that she has become "invisible".

"What can I say about the most invisible chief minister we've had?Where is she? Nobody seems to have seen her in these five years. Herpredecessors might have had their infirmities. But at least theyengaged directly with people," says Lucknow resident Ram Advani, 93,echoing a common sentiment. Advani owns a bookshop in upscaleHazratganj and is the father of novelist and publisher Rukun Advani.

Bahujan Samaj Party workers agree that she has "completely sundered"herself from the party's "ideological core" and is counting on herstatus as a "Dalit's daughter" (Dalit ki beti) to fetch her an encore.

"Behenji has forgotten her party's origins. Had Kanshi Ram beenaround, he would have kept her on course," said a party member.Mayawati's "inaccessibility", a self-induced aura of "invincibility"and above all, her "invisibility" have taken a toll on the BSP'sprospects, he said.

Police officers said she throws a fit if the route of her convoy isnot scrupulously sanitised.

"This means that not a leaf should fall on her car, no person shouldbe allowed anywhere close to it. In her public meetings, we wereinstructed not to allow anyone close to her. Once, a woman managed tobreak the barricades and force herself near her car. The cops incharge were suspended or transferred," an officer said.

In 2007, Samajwadi was accused of losing touch with its roots.

Mulayam Singh Yadav's party, which once flaunted its zamini(grassroots) connections, had become overwhelmed by Bollywood glamour,thanks to Mulayam's former confidant Amar Singh,.

With Amar gone, the Samajwadi campaign does not have a singlecelebrity this time. Not even a Bhojpuri starlet has been brought inpull the crowds. "We have rediscovered our origins. This election isbeing fought by the cadres and the people," said Anand Bhadouria, anaide of Mulayam's son Akhilesh.

Disconnect with the people is now a charge lobbed at the ruling BSP.

But some in the BSP insisted that reports of Mayawati's seclusion were"exaggerated". Hazarelal Gautam, the co-ordinator of the RamnagarAssembly seat in Barabanki district (which voted in phase one lastweek), said: "Our top functionaries meet Behenji once in four months.We don't care if she interacts with us or not because our job is topropagate her achievements."

But others in Gautam's position did not sound as detached. One BSPleader in Kushinagar (eastern Uttar Pradesh) spoke of how zonalco-ordinators — the conduit between Mayawati and the cadres — hadallegedly skimmed off the malai (cream) in contracts and deals.

"It was as though there was a covenant between a couple of her trustedaides and the co-ordinators to share the spoils of power. We who haveslogged in the mission for years were left empty-handed," theKushinagar leader complained.

In several towns, cadres complained that a flagship scheme like theKanshi Ram Awas Yojana, meant to allot low-cost houses to Dalitsliving below the poverty line, was "abused" by the zonal co-ordinatorsof the BSP or "vested interests" close to them.

In Varanasi district, for instance, it was alleged that some bona fideallottees had to cough up as much as Rs 5,000 to claim their houses.In other places, it was alleged that the co-ordinators had handed thehouses to "dubious parties" who used them as gambling dens.

If Mayawati's "centralised power abuse" was the staple of politicaldiscourse in government circles, officials didn't sound particularlyamused with recollections of the Samajwadi Party's "decentralised"mechanisms.

"The BSP has downsized the scale of the beneficiaries. Huge benefitsfor a few. With Mulayam, it's much more democratic. Anybody who hasserved the party well in the past five years can look forward tolucrative entitlements for the next five years," a bureaucrat said.